Date: 28-04-2018
Time of day: Night
Location: Putsborough
Mark: Right hand side of beach
Low Tide: 11:53(1.03m) 00:08(0.95m) 12:31(0.86m)
High Tide: 05:44(8.95m) 18:08(9.02m) 06:26(9.16m) 18:48(9.19m)
Time fished from: 20:45
Time fished to: 03:30
Weather: Cloudy with a full moon, a small wind from behind.
Sea: Clear with small waves to begin with but becoming a bit bigger after low tide.
Method: Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (homemade 2 hook flapper)
Bait: Frozen Large Sandeel, Frozen Small Sandeel, Frozen Mackerel Segments, Frozen whole Loligo Squid, Frozen Peeler Crab | Frozen Black Lugworm, Frozen Mackerel Strips, Frozen Squid Pieces
Caught (weight): 2 Dogfish (1lbs 8oz, Guessed), 1 Bull Huss (2lbs 8oz, Guessed) | 2 Dogfish (1lbs 8oz, Guessed), 1 Dogfish (2lbs 8oz, Guessed), 1 Smoothound (0lbs 8oz, Guessed)
The Session: I fished with Amanda and Robert again and this time we decided to give Putsborough beach a go to see if there were any Rays, Bass or Smoothound around.
We walked to the far right hand side of the beach and set up between the last 3 houses.
I set up my usual ledger rods and as I wore waders I walked out until I was knee deep in water and cast each rod straight out around 70 yards, which was reaching behind the first sign of waves beginning to form. I left each cast for between 10 minutes and 20 minutes before rebaiting and recasting.
Things were quiet for around the first 3 hours, none of us registered a bite. The first fish was caught by Amanda, which was a small Brill. I have only caught one before myself and so was glad of the opportunity to see the patterns on this one. It is a fish I wish I caught more of so I could see the various differences in patterns and colourings. Robert then caught some dogfish and Amanda had one too.
I had a couple of bites on large sandeel which gave me a bit of confidence because the sandeel was leftovers from previous sessions which I was needing to use up. I missed the first two though, and then I changed to crab bait for a few casts and experienced the same kind of bites, then I changed to squid and also put mackerel on one hook of the flapper rig along with the lugworm on the other hook.
Eventually I began hooking the fish and the first few were all dogfish. Then I had a strange bite on the flapper rig it began quite gentle before the rod tip moved around a lot and when I struck and reeled in the fish I had hooked a dogfish and a small smoothound. Then 15 minutes later a very shy bite on the pulley rig on which I had put 4 small sandeels, resulted in a small Bull Huss. Finally there was almost an hour before I connected to the next fish as they were showing as gentle bites, and there was another half an hour before the one after that, both were dogfish.
After another half an hour my pulley rig came back badly tangledso I decided to pack that rod up. Robert had a tangle on one of his rods too so we decided to pack up and head home.
It seems the Ray are not about around here in abundance yet, though last year it was May before I had my first one and maybe the recent storms have affected the food sources and sea conditions enough for the fishes habits to have to change a bit.
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1: Rod: Daiwa seahunter Z 13ft 2 piece MFS (£42.99) [ > 0 years 4 months ]
Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 Fixed spool (£48.99) [ > 3 years 1 months ]
Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m
Hooks: Sakuma Manta 2/0 (£5.78) 30
Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M
Hooklength: Sunset Amnesia 40lb (£4.50) 100m
Set up 2: Rod: Vercelli Outlander KW 13.5ft 3 Fixed Spool (£33.75) [ > 0 years 1 months ]
Reel: Shakespeare Agility Surf 70FD Fixed Spool (£39.99) [ > 3 years 11 months ]
Line: Daiwa Hyper Sensor 20lb (£12.95) 635m
Hooks: Sakuma Stinger 2 (£15.00) 100
Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M
Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb (£4.00) 100m
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